Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets IV has been promoted to vice commander of Air Force Global Strike Command headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, the Pentagon announced Thursday.

He is the grandson of Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets Jr., who as a colonel was the pilot of the B-29 — known as the Enola Gay — which deployed a uranium bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

The atomic bomb, the first of two dropped on Japan in an effort to force the Japanese empire to surrender, destroyed about five square miles of Hiroshima and killed as many as 160,000 people. The force of the bomb was equivalent to the conventional bomb load of 220 B-29 bombers. Casualties from the bombing continued for four months as many more died from blast effects, radiation poisoning and the bomb's resulting firestorm.

"These events laid the groundwork for strategic deterrence today," Tibbets IV told Air Force Times on the 70th anniversary of the bombing. "Through a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent, we have avoided the actual employment of those types of weapons since 1945," he added.

Tibbets IV is being transferred to the Global Strike Command headquarters after serving as the commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, the same bomber wing his grandfather served in.

"My grandfather always understood the importance of the mission that he and all of the service members supporting the mission carried out," Tibbets said of his grandfather's orders, given directly by President Harry Truman. "He knew that these missions had the real possibility of bringing World War II to an end, saving a substantial number of lives on both sides, and getting Americans home to their families."

The Air Force's Global Strike Command oversees the nation's three intercontinental ballistic missile wings, the Air Force's entire bomber force, to include B-52, B-1 and B-2 wings, the Long Range Strike Bomber program, and operational and maintenance support to organizations within the nuclear enterprise.

In his new role as vice commander, Tibbits IV is the second in command of the Air Force's nuclear deterrence and global strike operations under Gen. Robin Rand. 

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